Established in the North Yorkshire town of Middlesborough in 1950 by Stanley Thompson, SM Thompson Ltd is a family-owned business — now in its third generation of management — that specialises in steel-plate processing for a variety of industry sectors. These include oil and gas, construction, wind farms, and general fabrication — and the company is used to working on large-scale parts and projects, using mostly CNC-based machines.

For example, SM Thompson’s flame-cutting capability accommodates plate up to 350mm thick with bed sizes up to 3,000 x 18,000mm, while the company’s HD (high definition) plasma machines — both fixed head and bevel — can process mild steel up to 60mm thick with bed sizes of 3,000 x 12,000mm. SM Thompson also undertakes plate rolling and press braking, its largest press brake being a 500-tonne CNC model with a 5m bed length.

Laser cutting has long been a service offered by the company, and one in which it has made considerable investment of late, the last two machines being fibre laser models from World Machinery Ltd, Bridgnorth, which for over 40 years has been supplying new and high-quality used sheet-metalworking machinery in the UK and abroad. The first of these two, installed a little over a year ago, is a Bodor Model P4-12kW machine with a 4,000 x 2,000mm working area and capable of cutting carbon steel (40mm), stainless steel (40mm), aluminium (40mm), and brass (18mm). The second, installed more recently, is a Bodor Model P6-22kW; this has a 6,000 x 2,500mm working area and increases the cutting capacity for steels to 60mm (aluminium and brass to 40 and 25mm respectively).

Harvey Thompson, SM Thompson’s managing director, says the firm’s recent investments in ‘state of the art’ laser cutting machines not only support more environment-friendly ways of working but also enable larger orders to be processed even faster, adding: “Our continued investment in new machinery enables us to offer a range of services to our customers, with exceptional precision; and by enhancing the range and capabilities of our machinery we can respond readily to market changes. It has always been our ethos to invest in the latest technology to keep us at the top of the game, and these machines continue that ethos.

“Moreover, as well as a fantastic cut quality, the lasers offer an etching capability that can be used for marking bend lines and profile identifications, thereby enabling us to more easily undertake large orders while identifying parts quickly, saving us valuable time and money. The high-end fibre laser provides precise technology and a stable cutting process up to the highest laser power.”

Precision, speed, and efficiency
Mr Thompson continued: “When we purchased the 12kW machine a little over a year ago, I was so impressed by its precision, speed, and efficiency that I knew straight away this was the future for large-quantity orders. Just six months later we ordered the 22kW laser from World Machinery; and since having it installed, our customers have been pleased to know that they can place orders for cutting material up to 50mm thick.”

Highlighting some of the features offered by these Bodor machines, Wayne Hipkiss — World Machinery’s managing director — said that with regard to machine structure, they feature a welded bed with ‘mortise and tenon’ joints; also, a ‘stretched aluminium’ crossbeam designed to optimise rigidity, minimise weight and allow fast operating speeds with accelerations up to 4g. Furthermore, while the laser source is a Max Photoics product, the cutting head itself is made by Bodor — as is the CNC system, being a Bodor Thinker 3 with a 21.5in touchscreen.

Also featured are: automatic nozzle changing that can effect a change within 35sec; automatic edge detection that works without operator intervention and takes just 1sec; scan cutting for faster processing of materials with the ability to cut thicker materials with the same laser power without beam reflection; and obstacle avoidance that detects cutting obstacles to effectively ‘reduce the damage rate’, thereby saving maintenance costs and downtime. There is also a constant cutting gas pressure facility; this fully closed-loop control ‘adjusts to feedback to ensure that the actual motion position is consistent with the theoretical input value’.

Mr Hipkiss says SM Thompson is now looking at the possibility of a Bodor M500 tube laser, so that the company can offers its customers a tube laser cutting service.